Once these parents had turned him against his masculinity, why did they go along with the idea of mutilating their own child? This is sick.
This fixing pyschological problems with medicine is broader than just this problem. It seems that many pyschiatrists are pretending to resolve deep rooted pyschological problems with some kind of physical treatment such as drugs or in the case of people with confused sexual identities going as far as mutilating the human body.
I think the case of the eight year old boy who said that he was a boy, it appears to fit the template of “fixing the kid” rather than looking at the whole family. It is easier to give the kid drugs than to look at the whole family dynamic. This case of the eight year old “transsexual” appears to be that way. I think that some way it was communicated to that boy that being a boy was not okay. He picked up these messages (which were probably subliminal) and began to dislike his own masculinity.
There may be other expressions of this happening. For example, the school shootings which are usually done by boys may have some element of boys with a displaced identity. Society today sends so many negative messages about maleness, add to that a home situation that is problematic and that combination of events can take the expression of violence. One kid turns against his own masculine identity and wants to become a girl, another kid explodes in an irrational anger that even he does not understand.
Another example of medicating the child rather than dealing with the crazy parents, is a case in Massachusetts where a five year old was drugged to death by her parents and pediatrician. This little girl had been molested by her either her father or stepfather but he was allowed to get back into the home. You can see how the little girl would have had problems living in a home like this. But rather than dealing with the pyschological problems of the adults, the system treated the little girl as if she was the problem and not the parents.
I think this happens in many ways, the pyschiatrist does not look the parents in the eye and tell them that they are causing the problems in their kids. The parents are the paying customers so they just do the bidding of the parents and give drugs to the kids. I believe this is what happened with the eight year old boy who wanted to be a girl. I believe the parents went to their doctor because the boy was acting in an abnormal way. I don’t know what the doctor said, but if the doctor didn’t say what the parents wanted to hear, they probably would have shopped around for another doctor who would let them off the hook and tell them that it was some chemical problem and let’s fix the kid by changing his sex - problem solved.